Israel resorted Tuesday night, May 26, to its old routine response to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip by the aerial bombardment of four “terrorist” targets. Once again, Hamas hurriedly removed its personnel from the targeted facilities in time to escape casualties. For Israel it was an opportunity missed. The first Palestinian long-range Grad rocket attack since last summer’s Israeli operation in Gaza was a chance to go for really potent terrorist infrastructure, such as the new tunnels the Palestinians are again running under the border.

Israeli defense officials passed word Thursday, July 3, that troop reinforcements had been sent to the Gaza Strip border amid intensifying Palestinian rocket barrages. debkafile: tanks and self-propelled artillery were certainly included. Another official said the Israeli war fleet opposite Gaza’s Mediterranean coast was also reinforced, and the Home Front Command had raised the national level of alert. The IDF anticipates Hamas wideneing its targets from the south further north. Broadcasting these movements warned Hamas to stop the rocket barrage or else the IDF would act.

The Israeli Air force struck 7 terrorist targets in southern Gaza Thursday, March 13, after a second round of rockets were fired at Ashkelon and Ashdod. The Jihad Islami reported a ceasefire was negotiated through Egypt. This was not confirmed by Israel. Earlier, Israel’s security cabinet met to determine how the IDF should handle Jihad Islami’s massive assault against Israel Wednesday, executed on orders from its boss, Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as payback for Israel's seizure of an Iranian missile ship last week.

Eilat come under missile attack from Sinai every few days, like Gaza’s Israeli neighbors - harmlessly thus far. But the Red Sea tourist resort is paying for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yaalon’s short-sighted policy of security and intelligence cooperation with Egypt’s Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. Direct action against Gaza and Sinai terror has passed into Egyptian hands. This gap in Israel’s security has been seized on by the Islamist Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis terrorists to take the country hostage against El-Sisi’s counter-terror offensive.

Syria and Hizballah Sunday, Sept. 8, finished supplying rockets to dozens of Palestinian groups, some ad hoc inventions, and deploying them on the Syrian and Lebanese borders facing Israel, debkafile discloses. An array of Katyushas, Grads and Fajr-5s, with ranges of up to 70 kilometers, is now in place. That night, an Israeli anti-missile Iron Dome battery was deployed in the Jerusalem region for the first time. Also Sunday, two Sukhoi (Su-24) bombers flew over the British Cypriot air base of Akrotiri, the second Syrian over-flight in a week.

Within 48 hours, Assad and Iran launched a three-point punitive offensive for foreign intervention in the Syrian war, debkafile reports. The facts: The sarin nerve gas shells which claimed more than 1,000 Syrian lives Wednesday, Aug. 21, were fired by the 155th Brigade of the Syrian army’s 4th Division commanded by Gen. Maher Assad from Mount Kalmun. This atrocity was followed by a rocket attack on Israel from Lebanon and deadly blasts in Tripoli. The price for not stopping Assad and Tehran now is likely to become even grimmer.

The four rockets striking Israel from South Lebanon Thursday, Aug. 22, were Grad 120mm rockets launched by the Jihad Islami from the Palestinian Burj Al-Shamali refugee camp near Tyre. This emerged after a stream of muddled and conflicting communiqués came from the IDF spokesman. The Jihad Islami takes its orders from Tehran and the Lebanese Hizballah. One of the rockets was intercepted by Iron Dome. None inflicted casualties, except for three shock victims, but they did cause damage to buildings and vehicles in two locations.

After months of relative calm, the pro-Iran Palestinian Jihad Islami fired 6 Grad missiles at Beersheba and Ashkelon from the Gaza Strip before dawn Monday. There were no casualties. debkafile: The attack came after Hamas special forces liquidated Jihad’s missile commander Sunday, June 23, amid a violent feud over Jihad’s opposition to the ceasefire accepted by Hamas after Israel’s Defensive Cloud operation last November. Two of the four Grads aimed at Ashkelon were intercepted by Iron Dome. The Israeli air force hit back.

Missile alert sirens sounded across Greater Tel Aviv Saturday, Nov. 17, before an explosion caused by Iron Dome’s interception of one of the two rockets incoming from the Gaza Strip against Israel’s largest conurbation for the third day in a row. The second rocket landed harmlessly on open ground.
Hamas claimed to have launched Iran-made Fajr-5 long-range missile against Tel Aviv. The Iron Dome anti-missile battery was deployed for the first time in Greater Tel Aviv that morning,

Knowing that the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt had egged Hamas on to launch a major missile offensive against Israel, the Netanyahu government took the precaution of getting US backing before launching Israel’s counter-offensive to degrade the terrorist group’s rocket capabilities.

Most Palestinians groups met in Gaza City Monday night, Nov. 12, to approve a ceasefire after a three-day, 300-rocket assault on Israel. But the Salafists stayed away, instead firing 5 heavy Grad rockets against Netivot, Beersheba and Ofakim and taking delivery of a fresh load of Grads through the Sinai tunnels, assisted by Tehran’s proxy, Jihad Islam. Yet Israel, Egypt and even Hamas continued to delude themselves that a ceasefire can work - although Israel’s top command reckons it will collapse within days.

Al Qaeda missiles struck Kibbutz Kholit opposite the Egyptian-Gazan-Israeli border junction and an IDF post in the Kissufim district Monday, Aug. 28, debkafile reveals, in line with the terrorists' tactic of holding Israel hostage as a lever for bending Cairo to their will. The IDF communiqué omitted to mention those attacks - only the Qassam rocket targeting Sderot that morning. Al Qaeda’s affiliates timed their strikes for derailing talks the Egyptian defense minister and army chief held Monday with Sinai Bedouin chiefs.

For the first time, a thread links the triple rocket attack on the Israeli town of Sderot, with the two terrorist cells captured in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Sunday, Aug. 26, debkafile reports. Both were conceived by Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP has ordered its Sinai cells and Egyptian and Palestinian offshoots to step up their attacks and hold Israeli towns, Eilat and Sderot, hostage against pursuit. Fears that chemicals held by the Saudi cell may have reached Sinai.

Col. Adam Zusman, Home Front Commander of Israel’s Dan region told AFP Tuesday, June 12, "In case of a missile attack on the centre of Israel, especially unconventional attacks and if buildings are destroyed, the population from Tel Aviv and other cities will be evacuated and relocated in other areas of the country." The first Israeli official to speak openly of this prospect, he did not say to where the roughly three million inhabitants of Tel Aviv and its environs would be relocated. The threat came from Iran and its allies, he said..

Iran is setting up Jihad Islami, its Palestinian arm in the Gaza Strip, as its spearhead for attacking Israel in place of Hamas which Tehran no long trusts, debkafile’s reports exclusively. The radical group is receiving a new range of shore-to-ship radar-guided missiles and a new military industry is being set up in Gaza for the high-speed production of dozens of Qassam missiles in series capable of doubling the intensity and range of attacks on Israel to 200 per day up to Tel Aviv.

Israel Thursday night, March 15, gave Egypt and Hamas two days to halt the five-day missile offensive from Gaza or expect IDF action against the shooters. debkafile reports that the missile operation has been taken over by a small group of Salafi Palestinians linked to al Qaeda. And Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar is currently visiting Tehran and being urged by his Iranian hosts to block a ceasefire so as draw the Israeli military into a messy showdown with the Salafis.

Six mortar rounds exploded on empty ground in the Eshkol farm district abutting on the Gaza Strip shortly before Tuesday March 13 noon, less than 12 hours after Cairo announced a ceasefire. debkafile reports Palestinian organizations, including Hamas, are resolved to keep up a low level of fire on Israeli civilian locations so as to establish their prerogative for shooting at will regardless of any ceasefire deals. Israel is apt to accept this arrangement to avoid a head-on clash.

The 100 missiles fired by the Palestinian Jihad Islami escalated Saturday and included Grad multiple rocket launchers mounted on vehicles and SA-7 anti-air rockets, the Russian version of the American Stinger, smuggled from Libya. Defense minister Ehud Barak warned there was more to come and the threat of a terrorist attack from Sinai was not over. A third Iron Dome anti-missile battery was posted in Ashdod. The police raised the terrorist alert nationwide to one below the highest level.

Palestinian terrorist organizations shot more than 80 Grad and Qassam missiles into a dozen southern Israeli towns and villages, sustaining a non-stop barrage Friday night and Saturday morning (March-9-10) in reprisal for the death of Zuheir al-Qaisi, head of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. At least 8 Israeli civilians were injured by missiles and another 10 Palestinians killed in ongoing Israeli air strikes against missile teams and terrorist targets. Fifteen rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome batteries. Jihad Islami said "The truce is dead."